Carrizales opened his eyes to their utmost width, and turning them full upon her, stared at her a long while with a look of profound amazement.  At last he said, “Do me the pleasure, senora, to send instantly for your parents in my name, and ask them to come hither, for I feel something at my heart which distresses me exceedingly.  I fear I have but a short time to live, and I should like to see them before I die.”

Leonora immediately despatched the negro with this message to her parents.  She fully believed what her husband had told her, and attributing his danger to the violence of the opiate instead of to its real cause, she put her arms round his neck, caressed him more fondly than ever she had done before, and inquired how he felt, with such tender solicitude, as if she loved him above everything in the world; while he, on the other hand, continued to gaze upon her with the same unvarying look of astonishment, every endearing word or caress of hers being like a dagger to his heart.  The duena had, by this time, acquainted Loaysa and the domestics with her master’s illness, which, she remarked, was evidently very serious, since he had forgotten to give orders that the street door should be locked after the negro’s departure to summon her lady’s parents.  The message was itself a portentous occurrence, for neither father nor mother had ever set foot within that house since their daughter’s marriage.  In short, the whole household was in anxiety, though no one divined the true cause of the old man’s illness.  He lay sighing at intervals, so heavily that every sigh seemed like the parting of soul and body.  Leonora wept to see him in such a state, whilst he beheld her feigned tears, as he deemed them, with a bitter smile, that looked like the grin of insanity.

Leonora’s parents now arrived, and were struck with no little misgivings when they found both entrance doors open and the house all lonely and silent.  They went up to their son-in-law’s room, and found him in the posture he had all along maintained, with his eyes immovably fixed on his wife, whom he held by the hands, whilst both were in tears; she, because she saw his flow, and he at seeing how deceitfully she wept.  As soon as they entered the room, Carrizales begged them to be seated, ordered all the domestics to withdraw except Marialonso, then wiped his eyes, and with a calm voice and an air of perfect composure addressed them thus:—­

“I am sure, my respected father and mother-in-law, I need no other witnesses than yourselves to the truth of what I have now to say to you in the first place.  You must well remember with how much love and what tender affection I received your daughter when you bestowed her upon me one year, one month, five days, and nine hours ago, as my lawful wife.  You know, also, with what liberality I behaved to her, for the settlement I made upon her would have been more than enough to furnish three young ladies of her quality